Den Tandt: Michael Sona’s conviction no victory for Tories

So, here’s the difficulty with the “single bad apple” defence, in all its iterations: As time runs on, the rotten fruit starts to pile up. And all those singles begin to look like a collection.

This is the challenge now faced by the Conservative party, as its partisans seek to spin the conviction of former staffer Michael Sona on a single charge of election fraud. That verdict, handed down Thursday by a Guelph, Ont. judge, means Sona now faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. It also means the governing Tories will endure another year, heading into the 2015 election, of fending off opposition charges that they are predisposed to bending, twisting or breaking the rules, when and as it suits them.

It’s counterintuitive of course to say that the government lost, when its central argument all along has been that Sona alone was at fault in the robocalls affair, and given the case against him was made by former fellow Tories. In the days after Postmedia News and The Ottawa Citizen’s Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor broke this story, it appeared to be a possible government-toppling event. It is no longer that, all by its lonesome. But this is a bit like the farmer arguing the tornado touchdown was good news because it only wiped out his barn, rather than the barn, house and all the livestock. The barn must be rebuilt. And the Conservatives have lost too many outbuildings already.

There was the “in and out” affair in 2007, related to spending-limit violations in the 2006 election, which the Conservatives minimized for years but to which the party ultimately pleaded guilty. In-and-out amounted to series of money transfers in which central campaign ad dollars were routed through accounts belonging to dozens of MP candidates. Elections Canada’s investigation, McGregor and Maher later reported, cost taxpayers more than $2 million.

There was former intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue, who was found to have overspent and accepted illegal contributions in his winning 2011 campaign in Labrador. Penashue eventually resigned his seat, sought re-election, and lost in a 2013 by-election to Liberal Yvonne Jones.

There’s Dean Del Mastro, formerly Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s parliamentary secretary and a key player for the Conservatives on the Commons floor, now an independent on trial for exceeding spending and donation limits, and filing a false return. Del Mastro has pleaded not guilty. Closing arguments are expected in September.

Given the history, therefore, robocalls fills out a pattern. Setting partisan spin aside, Thursday’s judgment by Superior Court Justice Gary Hearn can have offered little comfort to Conservative strategists. The judge appears to have all but discounted the testimony of a key Crown witness, Sona’s former Tory colleague, Andrew Prescott. More importantly, Hearn found the evidence suggests Sona probably did not act alone. So much for the rogue agent. The hunt for other culprits will continue apace.

More important than all of that, however is the frame within which this judgment was delivered. That frame has two components.

The first is the long-running Senate expense scandal and the looming trial of suspended former Conservative senator Mike Duffy, who faces 31 criminal charges, including breach of trust, bribery and fraud. His first appearance in an Ottawa court is set for Sept. 16. The body of the trial may, of course, be deferred well into the future – even as far out as post-election, 2015. Or, testimony could begin sooner. Either way, we know what Duffy intends: His speeches to the Senate last year, in which he scorched more earth than seemed humanly possible, can be considered a preamble. Here too the Conservatives have used the “bad apple” defence, seeking to isolate Duffy and two other former Tory senators, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin, found to have filed improper expenses. To repeat: How many bad apples can a single tree bear, before it begins to look rotten in the trunk?

The second is an enduring slump in the government’s popularity. Conservative partisans have been consoling themselves lately with thoughts that the PM’s uncompromising defences of Israel and combative denunciations of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin will prove to be the magical elixir that puts them over the top in 2015, along with targeted tax cuts. Well, maybe. Except it doesn’t take a Conservative to denounce a demagogue or spend a surplus. Over the summer, the Tories have slipped in the polls: According to aggregator threehundredeight.com, they now hold 28 per cent popular support, compared with 39 per cent for the Liberals, and 22 per cent for the New Democrats.

For a governing party heading into its tenth year in power – a stage of life when Canadian administrations typically are leaning towards the recycling bin – those are daunting numbers. Unless Prime Minister Stephen Harper is preparing to unveil a hitherto hidden facet of his personality, which will make him wildly popular as opposed to grudgingly respected, the Conservatives are in some trouble. Michael Sona, whether rogue agent or symptomatic of a culture, was a Conservative. His conviction just adds to the already considerable weight, dragging the party down.

I am a national political columnist for Postmedia News. My work appears in the National Post, on Canada.com, the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Halifax Chronicle-Herald... read more and Vancouver Sun, among other publications. I write primarily about national politics and policy.View author's profile